130 Life of a Fossil Hunter 



Our method of work was first to cut down and 

 remove the sand and rock for a space twenty feet 

 wide and perhaps a hundred long, using a plow and 

 scraper. Then we cleaned up our floor and un- 

 covered the bones with oyster knives and other tools 

 which we had made to suit our purpose. One, I re- 

 member, was a hoe straightened out at the shank and 

 cut off at the corners to make a diamond-shaped tool. 

 With this we could work under the high bank, and 

 take out specimens which we could not reach other- 

 wise. Trowels and diggers of various patterns were 

 used also. 



The bones which we were collecting lay scattered 

 along both sides of the ravine for a quarter of a 

 mile, often in pockets or pot-holes in the gray sand- 

 stone. Of this there are two layers, about four- 

 teen feet apart, the interspace being filled with beds 

 of fine moulding sand, with some whiting from the 

 underlying chalk, which constituted the land sur- 

 face when these fresh-water beds were deposited. 

 There are also beds of sand that have been washed 

 clean by the currents of the flood-plain of some 

 ancient river, for the exposed section shows all the 

 different deposits of an overflowed valley. Above 

 the washed sand is a stratum of sand and clay, in- 

 dicating that here was a quiet place where the 

 muddy backwater deposited its load. This layer, 

 upon exposure, cracks in all directions, like the mud 



